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Fairytales don’t always work out the way you plan.

Jenn Taylor has been with her husband, Jack, since they were in college. They had a fairytale life plan. They were going to finish college, get married and have three, perfect, children all two and a half years apart.

What happens is, the three perfect children become the four, not so perfect, children. Jenn and Jack are so busy keeping a handle on work and children that they don’t have the time, or energy, to keep the spark in their marriage. Jenn has noticed, lately, that the romance in her marriage is fading therefore she reads romance novels to ensconce herself in a world of romance.

Jenn complains to her friends about the lack of romance in her marriage, her friends suggest that to help spark up the marriage to recreate some of the scenes from her much-loved romance novels and surprise her husband.

Several attempts at recreating scenes from different novels are made, each one becoming increasingly complex and each one failing in a hilarious fashion. All the while she is trying to contend with three boys who do not know how to stay out of trouble, and a, environmentally and socially conscience, daughter who is trying to obtain her goal of becoming a vegan.

Is her marriage doomed to stay in a rut forever? Will she finally succeed in bringing the romance back? Or will she end up permanently injuring her husband with all the romantic scene mishaps?

Hi Guys, I know this isn’t how a blog is supposed to work, but since it’s only the three of you reading it, plus Mom—by the way, thanks for that Jolene—I thought I would personalize it a bit more. So last night I set the scene, the candles, the wine, the fire. I had my sexy new black dress on, and I met him at the door when he arrived.

Jack came in the door and he seemed startled to see me standing there. I gave him a glass of wine, then took his briefcase and put it beside the staircase.

“What’s all this?” he asked, and I told him that the children were at my parents and we were going to have a romantic evening. He was completely onboard. We sat on the blanket on the floor, in front of the fire, drinking wine and talking about our day. It was very nice and very romantic, with the fire and all the candles going. I told him the lasagna was in the oven and that it would be ready whenever we were hungry. He said he was starving, so I jumped up to go get the plates of lasagna and salad and I knocked the red wine all over the blanket. He jumped up to use some napkins to clean it up, and he slipped on the blanket and fell on his back. I grabbed at the napkins in his hand to wipe up the spilt red wine before it leaked into the carpet. When the red wine was cleaned up, I went to the kitchen and brought out the lasagna and salad. We sat on the, now wet, blanket in front of the fire and ate dinner. We fed each other and drank wine together; really, we just enjoyed each other’s company.

After dinner, we were sitting there, gazing at the fire, and I was leaning against him and he had his arms around me. It was wonderful.

Suddenly he said, “Honey, I can’t take this heat anymore. Can we please douse the fire?”

“Oh, but it’s so beautiful,” I said, a little sad, and then I turned and looked at him.

He was seriously sweating. I mean pouring down his face, shirt soaked kind of sweating.

“Oh my God! Are you okay?” I asked, concerned.

“No, I’m super hot. I understand this is really beautiful and really nice, but Jen it’s ninety-five degrees outside and almost one hundred and twenty degrees in here. Can we please lose the fire?”

Jack then got up and put his hand out for me to grab to help me up. His hand was so sweaty that when I put my full weight on him to stand, my hand slipped out of his, and I fell forward, toward the coffee table. As you know, the coffee table is a perfect 48-inch by 48-inch square. Well, I had put about ten candles on the coffee table to ‘enhance the mood.’ When I fell, I hit about five of them, and they knocked into the other five. All ten candles hit the floor in different spots. We both dove to grab them all before the carpet caught fire and the house burned down. I dove to the right side of the table, and he went to the left. I blew out all the candles before I picked them up, and he put them out with his hand and threw them back on the table. When we had them all out and back on the table, we stared at the carpet, our newly-installed white carpet, and the ten little burn marks where all the candles had hit the floor.

“Oh, well,” Jack said with a hint of a smile around his lips. “The kids were going to ruin it anyway.” We both burst out laughing.

We doused the fire, the one in the fireplace, and then went to do the dishes in the kitchen. Jack and I cleaned up the kitchen together, which isn’t part of the scene in The Millionaire’s Mistress, but someone needed to clean it. We then went back to the living room and sat on the couch, this time with only one candle burning. We sat there talking about what we were going to do this weekend—by the way, Mom, Jack is totally good for swimming and BBQ tonight—and what was happening at his work. We sat in silence for a little while, my head on Jack’s shoulder, enjoying each other’s company. I kept thinking this was it, this is when The Millionaire’s Mistress scene is going to start. This was going to put Tuesday nights to shame. I raised my head up to give him a steamy kiss, to basically let him know ‘it was on,’ and he was asleep. Yes, you read that correctly.

He was sleeping. S.l.e.e.p.i.n.g.

I smacked him on the top of the head.

“What did you do that for?” He woke up with a shocked expression on his face.

“Why are you sleeping?” I was on my feet by this point.

“Because I just worked a sixty-hour work week, and I’m exhausted. It’s after eleven. Do you know that?”

“Yes, I know that! I thought we were having a nice night, and we were going to make mad, passionate love, all night long, right here in the living room!”

Do you know what he said to me? Can you guys believe what he said to me?